The ability to maintain an intact outer layer of skin is essential to life itself in that the skin is critical to preventing infection (keeping out unwanted organisms) and preventing dehydration (keeping in desired water and/or bodily fluids). Accordingly, when the skin of an individual is damaged over a large percentage of the individual's body, a life threatening situation arises. The mortality following large burn wounds or other wounds which cause the removal of a large amount of skin are brought about by infection and/or dehydration caused by exposure of large areas of uncovered tissues i.e., tissue material not covered by an outer layer of skin.
In order to prevent dehydration and infection, a primary treatment regime involves the use of dressings which are designed to prevent loss of water and thus alleviate the dehydration problem and simultaneously prevent the proliferation of organisms and thus prevent infections. The dressings may include different forms of antiseptic compounds and may be comprised of a variety of materials capable of preventing the escape of substantial amounts of water.
A second step in a treatment regime requires the application of surgical debridement procedures. In these procedures, badly damaged and dead tissue is removed from the wound area along with any foreign substances which may have become implanted in the exposed tissue. Any such surgical procedures, of course, leave exposed wound areas. Accordingly, a third step in the treatment regime often involves the placement of an autograft of the patient's own skin onto the wound bed. Although this procedure can give very desirable results, it is generally not immediately possible in patients where a large percentage of the skin has been burned or removed. Insufficient skin is available in such circumstances and in other situations, the patient may be too ill to undergo the required transplant procedures.
If insufficient skin is available for transplant procedures or the patient is too ill to undergo such procedures, other treatment regimes are available which involve the placement of temporary dressings. Such dressings are comprised of materials such as pig skin, skin taken from human cadavers, various artificial skin-like membranes and various artificial skin-like preparations. These dressings must generally be removed prior to grafting Further, since they often involve the use of foreign tissue material, they may generate an immune reaction and be rejected. The present invention is an attempt to alleviate and/or eliminate deficiencies of such prior art dressings and thus provide an alternative protocol for the treatment of large surface wounds such as burn wounds.